Microsoft reports record revenue but also first ever quarterly loss

The firm's Entertainment and Devices Division increased revenue by approximately 20 per cent.

Microsoft has reported that its financial Q4 2012 revenue was an all-time high of $18.06 billion, an increase over the $17.37 billion from the same quarter last year.

Despite this, the firm announced that it made a net loss of $492 million for the quarter, due to a massive one-off "goodwill impairment charge" of $6.2 billion associated with aQuantive.- the business Microsoft acquired and turned into Microsoft Advertising.

On the Entertainment and Devices arm of the business, revenue grew 20 per cent compared to the same quarter in the previous year, largely due to addition of Skype to Microsoft's business.

The Xbox 360 also shipped 1.1 million units (down 600k compared to the previous year's same quarter), and it has remained the top-selling console in North America for 18 consecutive months.